The Northern Path

Return to the place of divergence.

An unconscious man poured out on the floorboards.

In each conversation, when we speak of travel, he tells of a road in the north.

“At first it seems common. . . If there are gentle hills, these sidle by like lambs toward a clover. Never a curve ahead.

But the dark earth pulses. . . ley-lines strung loosely on telephone poles. Sometimes we balance on them and feel ourselves pushed along above the thick, oak branches. When clouds shadow the path, young ivy creeps along its edges.

Dark, square sedans hurtle along the length. Every exit swings on hooks, they rotate on their racks like gates in a pinball machine.

Once your feet have taken a single running step on its surface, once you hurtle forward, once you send the wind retreating to the parcel (still in the hands of careless men), thoughts of flight seem vulgar.”

The mud mixed for golems
forms delicate ankles,
while icons are channeled
‘neath bright, colored light.

but not all is forgone,
ignore us at peril…

A lot of rationalizations are being vomited up in discussions of the fallout that might occur due this move.

A few things that don’t apply to this discussion:

1. Sony’s only doing this to stop piracy.

Not really. Once the thing was hacked, all attempts to prevent piracy are futile. Instead this removes functionality from honest users.

2. Six users in Idaho use it. So who cares?

It doesn’t matter how many use it. The feature was removed from every single user because it was convenient for Sony.

3. It was the only way to fix this.

Perhaps, but fix it for what? Piracy? I understand that, ostensibly, Sony wanted everyone to upgrade to remove the majority of the hardware from the vulnerability, but I find it very hard to believe that a patch wouldn’t have been a more consumer-centric decision.

Things like this only tend to aggravate Piracy.

The PS3 was and is sold as a device of infinite possibility. When I bought mine, I hoped the firmware proper would be expanded to meet this potential. Linux allowed those who wanted to utilize (at least some of) its strengths to do so. While I hoped Sony would add the sort of features that you see in something like Boxee I was content knowing that watching things like Hulu was possible in Linux. Eventually Sony added Netflix support and I was thrilled. However, taking away the OtherOS function with very little warning despite the painful upgrade process made it seem that Sony was removing the potential of the PS3 faster than they were utilizing it.

In short, the infinite possibility of the PS3 now seems to be the ability to output pretty game graphics. There are cheaper bluray players now with more internet media consumption capabilities. Unless Sony ups the ante soon with major features that aren’t game related, the PS3 is starting to look less and less like a capable home entertainment device and more like a game-focused console. If that’s the case, then you’re better off with an Xbox 360.

That’s a mistake.

I’m segregating my passions, and I realize that this is backwards because it doesn’t communicate who I am. It also has the effect of making me less prolific. My (revised) opinion is that one should create and express whenever there is inspiration or need to do so. Sounds self-indulgent, but this is a blog, right?

So… hope those few who read can tolerate that…

A tit for tat? (Two tries)

In a guffah’s ring exiled…
From a belly-piercing ache
we die.

Dreams.

Dreams come before me with familiar casts and scripts. Without a moment of confusion I find my mark. All the details fill me.

In this one the hall runs this direction.
In that one a dumbwaiter descends to horror.
Above the garage is a thing of power.
Can I cope with the thought that he’s gone?

But is it all fluttering eyes and subconscious process? Is it all imagination, creation of minutiae? Or do I connect to something else? Does my mind instead find someone somewhere beyond the curtain? Someone in a mystic place. Someone with a home like mine or a darling child that inevitably wastes away.

Sometimes I think it’s just too familiar. Sometimes these dozens of revisits wear at my certainty.

In the hierarchy of dreams, for me, these hold portent.

The reaches of bathtubs,
with snips of old ribbons
(glance there for water
and hypnotic reflections)
A puncture forgiven, now
struggle past slats
to blue-tinted glass.

A point to the cottoned,
she pulls comprehension
through in zig-zag and tacking
that threatens to slip, but…

when the stitches recede,
the frayed tears in her sleeves
creep up toward closed eyes
to gorge on despond